Episode 59 Success & Willpower
Welcome to the Vermillion podcast, a free audio library of business strategies,
creative inspiration, and industry knowledge for actors, filmmakers, writers,
and anyone looking to activate their creative potential. I'm Misha Calvair, a writer
-director who helps artists build the careers that they dream of. I really hope that
this podcast inspires you in some way. Thanks for tuning in.
Today, I'm going to talk to you about success and willpower. I'm going to explain
to you why being born into privilege is actually a disadvantage. And I'm going to
give you some ways to activate your willpower, which is one of the single most
important traits that you can have in order to create success for yourself. Most
successful people are actually not born into success. They're not successful because
they came in with money in their family or they were naturally given more
opportunities. I do understand the argument. Nepo babies, they basically just carry
along with the momentum that their family gifted them. So Yes,
that does happen, but actually what happens more often is a dip. Have you guys
heard of the phrase "shirt sleeves" to "shirt sleeves"? It's this old saying that,
let's say mom and dad are born, get together, they're very poor,
so they're wearing shirt sleeves like blue collar workers, and they're working their
ass off trying to make to me to make a better future for their kids. So they're
working in shirt sleeves and they work really really hard. They get a little bit of
financial success and they cultivate in their children super strong work ethic and
the desire to get ahead. Now those kids that they have go on to work even harder
and smarter and because of the opportunities that their hardworking parents gave them
they can have just enough of a door open that they can really take off. So then
they go from maybe like lower middle class to wealthy in their lifetime working off
of what their parents did for them. So then now this second generation is wealthy.
They're rich. They've made it millionaires, multimillionaires, decimillionaires, and they
have kids. But because they spoil their kids and the kids don't ever learn the work
ethic that the parents had, this third generation of kids ends up falling out of
that income bracket and once again having to pick up blue collar jobs or being
unemployed, so back to shirt sleeves. And I think of that a lot. And I think of
how I came from nothing and how I will be wealthy in my lifetime.
And I also think of how I'm not going to let my kids be lazy. I'm not going to
let them fall into that trap. At any rate, being born with opportunity,
I believe now is a huge disadvantage. I think it strips you of your work ethic,
your ambition, your hunger, your willpower. So probably you're not going to get to
where you want to go in terms of your goals and your dreams Because you don't have
a reason to grow. You don't have a reason to change and push yourself Whereas if
you are born into nothing like me You have a lot of desire to grow and a lot of
motivation to change
There's a study done that shows that people who do something every day that they
really don't want to do. I don't mean like brushing your teeth. I mean like really
I don't want to go for this run at 5 a .m. but they do it anyway. That that
activates a certain part of the brain and that people who live a really long time,
that same part of the brain is very active. So the scientists doing this study said
basically they've whatever the part of the brain that is responsible not only for
your willpower but your will to live. Your willpower is what elongates your will to
live. So we're going to talk about some ways to really cheat code things that you
don't want to do because oftentimes successful people have just gotten good at doing
hard things and not overthinking it. So I'm going to give you some tips. Hopefully
it is helpful and I love giving you the exact tools that you need in order to
improve and change your life. No fluff, let's get straight into it. First thing is
no digital media for the first four hours of your day. So this means charging your
phone in the other room if you can. More importantly, you want to give yourself
time at the top of the day to allow your natural wake -up cycle to occur and know
that media stimulates the reward system of your brain
without any effort on your part. Does that remind you of anything? Drugs,
yes. That's why we say social media is so addictive, it's engineered to stimulate
reward without effort, but also pornography. And I'm not here to kink shame anybody,
okay? But if you start to think about the same brain function with pornography as
you have with your social media accounts, it starts to change your understanding of
what's happening because, you know, you're on your phone and like your finger is
going to the app, just your thumb is there, it's there, it's there, without you
even thinking about it. When I started to consider like it's that it's a same brain
function as when people are watching pornography, I started to think of people in
the subway, the people who are just kind of absentmindedly like touching themselves
and how vile that is. Like that was me with my finger just reaching for the app
without thinking about it. That level of addiction and seeking of pleasure from my
brain, that's gross. So I stopped being interested in doing it. Hopefully this kind
of edgy framing of social media might make you think a little bit differently about
your habits.
All right, so you've got four hours of your day back right top of the day no
digital media no texting no emails This is about you. This is you time What are
you gonna do in this time? Well, yeah, do your morning routine if you have one
sure But the main thing that I want to invite is for you to do the single hardest
task of your day first
The secret to success is As simple as doing one hard thing a day for 365 days,
you will watch your life transform. You will see your entire life change with just
that one devotional practice of doing one hard thing a day. It can be a small hard
thing. I've got an email that I still haven't sent after six months, but I'm going
to do it this week. I've been doing other hard things. I do a hard thing a day.
I do at least one hard thing a day. But by the way, it only needs to be one
hard thing because if you start making it, well, if I can do one, I can do three,
I can do five. A lot of us are actually addicted to failure.
And so we unconsciously set ourselves up to fail. And we can't envision a future
where we succeed. And so we create the conditions for failure because it's familiar.
So I really, really want to say please one thing, one hard thing a day. You've got
enough to do. Just one hard thing and then the other stuff can be mid or easy. So
if there's a hard thing that you know you need to do and you find yourself not
doing it, my third tip is to break it down into stages, break it down into steps.
Because the overwhelm is usually a sign that it's not stepified yet. Pause the
podcast and make some notes right now on what the individual Stages of the hard
thing are so that you can do one Step at a time on whatever hard thing is on
your list Maybe even one step a day Because maybe the steps are hard Maybe each
step is a hard thing and you do one hard up a day for five days, Monday through
Friday, boom, Friday, your hard thing is done. So break it down into steps,
write down the different stages right now. Okay, so the next tip that I have,
I learned from a very wealthy CEO. He had just taken a helicopter to meet with me,
he was an investor. He would talk about the rule of touch at once and how much
that gives you time back in your day and energy. What I mean by touch at once,
most people, when they get incoming emails, text messages, they're going to see it
and they're going to pause before they respond. So a lot of us have perfectionist
tendencies. You want to make sure you craft the exact right response or you're
friendly and perky, and most of the time it's just not necessary. In fact,
you're wasting time and emotional energy each time you put a pin in it to come
back to it. Also sometimes you never come back to it, and that's even worse than a
bad response.
So touch it once is you see it come in, and even if it came in,
I'm serious, one minute ago, you respond immediately with whatever information you
have available most of you I know are not going to do the touch at once you're
gonna like respond days later and I would rather you do an imperfect response
immediately whenever you receive it then wait and waste emotional energy crafting the
perfect response the next day
I see a lack of communication a lot. I see it as one of the biggest reasons that
I don't hire somebody or I choose not to rehire them. And without the basic ability
of responding to emails and texts, there is no functional professional relationship.
So take the emotion out of it. Treat all your communications with an era of
professionalism. You will, I guarantee, become a lot better at responding faster. A
fast response that's imperfect is better than no response. And if you ever see me
emailing you without a period, it's just because I respect you enough to want to
get you an answer immediately. All right, the next tip is to lean on your
community. Why? Because the difficulty of something isn't so much about the task
itself.
It's about the fear that the thing isn't going to work out and that you're going
to have to face it alone. So if it doesn't go your way that you're not gonna have
anyone there to support you while you process the stress of that negative outcome.
That's often what prevents us from doing something. So if you can mitigate the
aloneness of it and ensure that you're gonna have support while you're processing it,
the fear is probably gonna abate. And you can usually find the courage to do the
thing that you've been putting off. I'd like for you right now to think of the
hard thing that you've been putting off, to name it,
and then Find one or more people who you can message to create a support system so
that you are not alone when you do this hard thing. And no matter what happens, if
it goes your way, if it doesn't, you are going to be supported. So if you want,
you can pause the podcast right now and text those people and ask them for support
around this one thing. All right, the next tip that I have.
Set yourself up the day before or the night before. Successful people are often
successful just because they've completed the pre -steps. So they have an environment
which perfectly sets them up to achieve whatever they're gonna set out to achieve.
They're motivated to do the thing that they want to do because the environment is
prepared them for it. Some other ways that this could look for you to set it up
the day before or the night before so that you have a perfect on -ramp to doing
and succeeding at the thing that you're trying to do. It could be getting eight
hours of sleep, not being hungover, Making amends with someone really close to you
like a partner best friend. Maybe that's hanging over your head
Feeding yourself good healthy food making sure you're getting enough water
Exercising regularly so you have energy and Inspiration in your body and that your
brain is working well These are all things that you can do the day before or the
night before to make sure that You are ready to begin the hard thing because if
you don't give yourself what your brain and body needs It's gonna be so much
harder. It's already a hard thing. You want to make it easier by doing the pre
-steps Okay, the final tip that I have is to prioritize imperfect effort over perfect
result. What do I mean by that? So a lot of us, when we think about a task,
we decide that if we succeed at the task or not, that's gonna be based on the
results. So a lot of us, when we set out to do something, we are gauging the
success of that thing based on the result that it gives us, like, did it work or
not? And I want to invite you to think of it as, did I do the best that I
possibly could or not? If you start to attach your value to,
did I do the best I possibly could, that's not only going to make you more likely
to start the thing, because then you're not worrying about whether it's going to
succeed or fail, But you're probably going to be more likely to succeed anyway.
When your results focused, you're focused on external circumstances.
And first of all, that creates anxiety. You can't control unknown factors coming in
and derailing your best efforts. You can't control other people. So trying to control
whether a result happens or not is going to create anxiety. Also, if you are
marrying the idea of doing something with the idea of doing it perfectly and that's
the only way that doing this thing is going to be worth it or valuable, you're
probably going to carry a seed of failure with you into the task Because perfection
isn't possible and we know that. So aiming for perfection is going to be an
exercise in failure. We're going to know that. So we're going to subconsciously have
already realized that in some way we're going to fail at this by aiming for
perfection. And we're bringing the seed of that failure into the task.
That doesn't sound like a recipe for success. And as mentioned, a lot of us are
addicted to failure.
It's the most comfortable place for us to live. It's also, if failure is guaranteed,
then we are not at fault for failing. Whoa. (laughs) So A lot of times we will
take on more than we should, because we know that it's gonna lead to failure.
And so if failure is baked in at the top of things, then how could we possibly be
faulted for failure? Because it is part of the entire equation from the moment we
begin. Now, obviously, this is not a good way to succeed. Release result and instead
embrace what you can control, which is your own ability to put foot on gas,
clean up the quality of your energy and the quantity of your effort, and not worry
about the outcome. That will lead you instead of being anxious, it will lead you in
with calm confidence, and failure Is no longer possible because the measure of your
success is your own relationship to the task?
Okay, I'm gonna leave you with a couple of questions to think about what's one
thing that you really really need to do That you really really don't want to do
Write it down
if it's a really big thing try breaking it down into stages, stepify it.
If it's small, pre -step it so that you're set up the day before or the night
before in order to blaze through it the next day.
And finally, break off into an accountability partner with somebody,
support them, give them the community and the encouragement that they need and ask
for the same back for you. Find an accountability partner for the thing that is
hard to do that you've been putting off and watch and see if it doesn't transform
your results. Okay, I've really enjoyed connecting with you about this.
I hope that it helps. Gosh, the world is hard enough and any support that I can
give, I'm so, so, so grateful and honored to give it. I hope that you have a
great rest of your week and I will see you next week. The Vermillion podcast is
sponsored by Vermillion, a home for artists. We offer classes, coaching, and community
for creatives and innovators in the arts. If you're ready to find your voice and
build the life of your dreams, we're here to support you every step of the way.
Check out clubvermillion .com and schedule a free call today.
